Fear & Honeyed Words
by khushiyan
Summary: Whilst he knows that he should listen to what she's saying, he becomes distracted by how shes saying it. Those pink lips in particular... ZK - Zuko companion piece to Burning Snowdrops


**title** Fear & Honeyed Words

**author** khushiyan

**fandom**; **characters** Avatar; Zuko/Katara, hints of Zuko/Mai & Zuko/Jin

**rating** PG-13

**prompt** 028. Apologise for lj comm. 50scenes

**shoutout** numbuh212 & abrightidea ( lj) for the beta!

**an** So, I was going through my Renaissance Drama notes on 'Doctor Faustus' & 'The Tempest', and I came across a particular point my lecturer made. She was just talking about the use of fear and language, how the characters use sweet words to envoke the greatest fears. And it stuck in my head and I obviously thought of Avatar. And this is what I got. I'm thinking it's the Zuko version of Burning Snowdrops, just less explicit and uh, angsty I guess. Enjoy.

**summary** Whilst he knows that he should listen to what she's saying, he becomes distracted by _how_ shes saying it. Those pink lips in particular...

* * *

_fear & honeyed words_

He knows that most of what she says to him is completely cruel, that her words are always coated in daggers and threats.

But that doesn't mean he should actually heed them. He gets distracted often. Her hair swooshes around and he gets annoyed that after ten odd years of the best tuition the Fire Nation has, she resorts his vocabulary to 'swooshes'. He then shrugs the thought away as his entire concentrations is forced onto her full and pink lips. They're no doubt cursing his existence and are telling him to go crawl back to hole he came from. He frowns slightly, and imagines them against his own. Would they be soft, like Jin's? Or would they have a raw and passionate feel, like Mai's?

He sighed at the thought of her. As apathetic a person she was, her kisses were always loving, always wanting. What would she be doing now? Would she miss him? Or would she simply become not care? He was about to argue against it when he realised he stopped caring.

"...so don't touch it!" He looked up and frowned as he heard the last of the words from those lips.

He blinked and darted his eyes around, wondering what the hell she was talking about. "I'm sorry, what were you saying? I wasn't paying attention..."

Her eyes widened and her entire face began to screw up together in anger and suddenly he didn't want to touch her anymore- well, he did, just not at that moment.

"Never mind," she told him through gritted teeth. Her shoulders hunched upwards and stomped away from him.

He scratched the back of his head and shrugged at Toph. She shook her head and hopped down from the mound of dirt she had made into her seat. "Way to go Sparky."

"What did I do?"

"It's what you _didn't_ do..." Toph put her hands on her hips and he blinked at her cryptic words. "You didn't listen to a thing she said! There was Katara being all nice to you and you ignored everything she said!"

"She was being nice to me?" He pointed at the spot she had just been in and his eyes bulged incredulously. "_Her_?!"

"Yes, her..."

"Girls are weird..." he whispered to himself and shrugged.

"Yes, we are. Now are you going to go and apologise or are you gonna wait for her to kick your ass?"

"She's never kicked my ass!"

"That's not what _she_ tells it..." Toph smirked and pushed him in the direction she had just felt the Sugar Queen move about in.

He rolled his eyes and pattered quietly to where she was. She was angrily chopping up the vegetables that they had scavenged with an knife made of ice. "I have a dagger you can use if you want," he offered and pointed to the vegetables. Her eyes snapped up to meet him and he decided against it- she'd probably use it to cut _him_ into tiny tiny pieces to serve with the aubergines.

"Doesn't matter..." She dropped her head back to the vegetables at his words and he sighed. "I'm sorry..."

"What for? There's a lot of things you need to apologise for." She slammed the knife down and chopped an aubergine in half. He winced at the poor aubergine.

"I'm going to apologise for not listening to you earlier."

"Is that the only apology you've got?!" She hissed and held her dagger tightly.

"I don't have anything else to apologise for!" His voice was agitated, with a slight tinge of hopelessness. He hope she didn't notice it.

"What?! You've got everything to apologise for!" Her lips pressed together thinly. They looked fuller than Mai's so when they move again, he was completely entranced. Those annoying, dangerous, cruel, _charming_ pink lips of hers held him captive. He licked his own without thinking as her cheeks flushed and and her eyes flared. A crease appeared on her nose as she screwed up her face and furrowed her brow. A part of himself told him to be wary but the other part told him to shut up so he could watch in peace.

She bit her lip and he frowned, wondering how it would feel to brush his own over it. How soft they would feel under his fingers. Those devious and delecatable lips. His eyes narrowed as he watched them pout and pull and push together to look like a kiss. He could reach forward now and take that kiss as his own, mark her lips with his. If only he could just-

"So did _that_ give you any clue as to why you should be so sorry?!"

He blinked and she pursed her lips so tightly he couldn't see them at all.

"Huh?"

Slowly her lip juts out again and he feels a light relief at their reappearance.

"You're disgusting..." they whispered, slow and smooth, and he felt a little betrayed by them again.

She stomps away, leaving him confused, quite alone wihout her lips to kiss.

_khushiyan_


End file.
